'Spun Candy' anyone?

[Roa_Aoife]

That's too rosy a picture. The Eastern Orthodox Church is a millennia-old institution, and when the Curtain came down, the local denizens of faith were vehemently set against any sort of foreign evangelicals. There was a conflict there about the True God, and it still rages on. Even dancing dervishes are considered some sort of "cult" by the Moscow Patriarchate (am not sure about Ukraine's Filaret & Co., or anyone else, I think they're a little less hardcore though).

Both pictures are correct. Your picture is depressing, mine is rosy- combine and we have the actuality. That wasn't really the point though. I was using an anology, not a history lesson.

So maybe Pullman isn't interested in proving anything, maybe he just watches religious folk struggle against each other and laughing into his fist.

Given his reaction to Lewis and Tolkien, and his attempt at attacking the Church in his novels, not to mention pushing his ideas of how things should be, I somehow doubt this is the case.